The Rural Voice, 2004-07, Page 1710 pounds of fleece but the average is
six to seven, Malone says.
The fleece is the reason alpacas
were domesticated. The most
valuable fleece is the very fine fibre
taken from a first shearing of a cria,
as the young are called. "It's the only
fibre soft enough to be next to a
baby's skin," Malone says.
British Columbia alpaca
enthusiast Barbara Lang
explains on her website
(www.alpacasincanada.com) that the
best quality fibre comes from the
"blanket" area, which represents 60
per cent of the total fleece. The
middle legs and neck often produce
good quality fleece but not as good
as the blanket, and the lower legs,
apron and belly have a coarser fleece
used for felting.
Lang says a six -pound fleece will
produce three felted hats, one felted
vest and one pair of felted slippers
from the coarse fibre and two
handspun woven scarves, two
handspun handknit hats and two
handspun and handknit sweaters
from the fine fibre.
Lang sells a 100 -gram ball (about
3.5 ounces) of very fine alpaca two-
ply yarn for between $25 and $30. It
means that when you add the labour
involved in knitting a sweater, an
alpaca sweater can cost a few
hundred dollars, she says, but claims
the sweaters become family
heirlooms that, if properly cared for,
can be passed down from generation
to generation. "I have never met
anyone who had regretted their
purchase of any alpaca garment," she
writes on her website.
Alpaca fleece comes in 22 distinct
colours and can be blended into an
infinite array of natural shades. Still,
Malone says, many weavers and
knitters seem to prefer white or black
fleece. The fibre can be easily dyed
Despite the quality of alpaca fibre,
it's still produced in far smaller
quantities worldwide than competing
fibres. There are about 4,000 tones of
alpaca fibre produced worldwide
each year compared to 5,000 tons of
cashmere, 8,500 tons of angora rabbit
and 22,000 tons of mohair. Less than
one per cent of the worldwide alpaca
fibre is produced in North America.
Alpaca fibre, advocates say, is as soft
as cashmere and warmer and stronger
than lamb's wool. It contains
microscopic air pockets that create
lightweight clothing with good
insulating values.
Brown and Malone only recently
received the fleece from their first
shearing back from a London -area
mill that cleaned and processed it
after last year's shearing. They are
still working to develop markets for
it.
The alpacas on Halcyon Farms are
Huacayas, the most common type of
alpaca. Its fibre grows perpendicular
to the body and has a fluffy, spongy
appearance and readily accepts dye.
Rarer Suri alpacas have a fleece that
hangs down in long ringlets. The
fibre doesn't have as much crimp as
Huacaya fibre and so to give it more
strength it is usually blended with
Huacaya fleece. It also doesn't accept
dye as well either.
The gestation time for alpacas is
an extraordinarily long 11.5 months
but the females are ready to breed
again in only two weeks. Malone
keeps the maies penned separately
except at breeding time because the
females are in heat regularly except
when they're pregnant. -
If the female is in heat she'll lie
down to let the male breed her. It
she's pregnant, she spits at the male
to send him away.
The females are good mothers and
need little attention, he ways. Within
30 minutes the young are usually on
their feet and nursing. Generally he
just checks to make sure the birth
sack is not covering the cria's face.
then picks it up to weigh it (they
generally weigh 15-19 pounds) and
then he leaves mother and cria alone.
(Another benefit with alpacas,
according to the CABA website, is
that they usually give birth between
10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.)
Alpacas don't mind cold and
rain and will be out in it even
when they could be indoors.
They don't like wind. however.
Malone says.
Like llamas, alpacas pick a few
places in the pasture for communal
bathroom use. Malone keeps these
areas cleaned up to limit opportunity
for disease spread or killing out the
pasture. The droppings have little
odour and are high in nitrogen and
potassium.
Except for shearing, the animals
only have to be handled for foot
trimming and teeth trimming.
Because they only have teeth in their
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